---
title: "On MLK Day, a look at black and white America"
description: "Nearly 47 years after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, blacks and whites in the United States in many ways continue to live starkly different lives."
date: "2015-01-19"
authors:
  - name: "Drew DeSilver"
    job_title: "Senior Writer/Editor"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/drew-desilver/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/01/19/on-mlk-day-a-look-at-black-and-white-america/"
categories:
  - "Black Americans"
  - "Discrimination & Prejudice"
  - "Economic Inequality"
  - "Race & Ethnicity"
  - "Racial Bias & Discrimination"
---

# On MLK Day, a look at black and white America

[![race relations black white views mlk](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2015/01/FT_15.01.16_blackWhiteTableWide.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/08/22/kings-dream-remains-an-elusive-goal-many-americans-see-racial-disparities/)

On a day commemorating what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 86th birthday, blacks and whites in the United States in many ways [continue to live starkly different lives](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/01/23/most-see-inequality-growing-but-partisans-differ-over-solutions/). African Americans are [less financially secure](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/01/08/the-politics-of-financial-insecurity-a-democratic-tilt-undercut-by-low-participation/#who-are-the-financially-insecure) than whites, less likely to have [ever been married](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2014/09/24/record-share-of-americans-have-never-married/), and less likely to [own their own homes](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/08/22/race-demographics/).

More than six decades after [*Brown v. Board of Education*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/347/483/case.html), more than three-quarters of black public-school students attend [majority-minority schools](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/05/16/public-school-enrollment-disparities-exist-60-years-after-historic-desegregation-ruling/). Yet [blacks express a higher degree of satisfaction](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/01/14/obama-job-rating-ticks-higher-views-of-nations-economy-turn-more-positive/) with current conditions in the U.S. (though that likely reflects partisan differences as much as anything).

Small wonder that [blacks and whites often see the world very differently](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/08/25/few-say-police-forces-nationally-do-well-in-treating-races-equally/). We've gathered some key findings from recent Pew Research Center reports on [black-white perception gaps](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/08/22/kings-dream-remains-an-elusive-goal-many-americans-see-racial-disparities/). On this Martin Luther King Day holiday, it makes for sobering reading.